20 Jan 09: What the world wants from the new American president.

[CougarKing]

Obama speaks out against trade protectionism; Harper is reportedly encouraged by these comments.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/090204/national/cda_us_protectionism

Harper 'encouraged' by Obama comments

Wed Feb 4, 4:18 PM

By Jennifer Ditchburn, The Canadian Press


OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he's encouraged to hear Barack Obama speak out against U.S. protectionism - but the Conservative government isn't breaking out the champagne quite yet.


The U.S. president gave two nationally televised interviews Tuesday evening during which he cautioned Congress against sparking global trade wars with protectionist policies.


Harper read some of those comments during question period in the House of Commons.


"We are encouraged, all Canadians are encouraged, by Mr. Obama's comments," Harper told MPs on Wednesday.


The Tories have been grasping for rays of hope in the public statements of key Washington players in the absence of a clear signal that bills before Congress will be watered down or altered.


American lawmakers are studying an $800-billion-plus stimulus package, which comes attached with rules that favour U.S. manufacturers and producers for public-works projects.


Such "Buy-American" provisions could deal a huge blow to Canada's industrial and manufacturing sectors.


International Trade Minister Stockwell Day warned that Obama's latest statements are still just talk, with the ball in Congress's court. Several U.S. politicians reacted to their president's comments Wednesday by reemphasizing their support of the Buy-American measures.

"It doesn't mean we're necessarily out of the woods yet in terms of making sure we're going to be absolved of any negative effects of this legislation," Day said.


Obama told ABC and Fox News that protectionism is the wrong signal to send internationally in economic hard times.


"I think that would be a mistake right now. That is a potential source of trade wars that we can't afford at a time when trade is sinking all across the globe," Obama said.


"We need to make sure that any provisions that are in there are not going to trigger a trade war."


Day said Obama's comments, and those of other senior U.S. politicians in recent days, prove Canadian lobbying efforts are paying off.


"It shows clearly that at all levels we've been engaged it's having some positive effect.... We're going to keep working 24/7 at all these various levels to make sure that there are no negative effects as far as protectionism from this legislation."


As for Harper calling Obama directly to discuss the matter, Day suggested the next personal chat will be when Obama visits Ottawa on Feb.19. The opposition and at least one former ambassador to the United States have suggested Harper should be making personal intercessions with Obama.


"We're actually hoping, and I hope not unrealistically, to have this resolved before he gets here."


Quebec Premier Jean Charest added to Canada's diplomatic efforts during a trip to Brussels on Wednesday.

The Quebec leader told the Associated Press that both the European Union and Canada should push the Obama administration and U.S. lawmakers harder.

"We have to be active in the United States, we have to make sure that our voices are heard. There is reason to be worried," said Charest, in Europe to push for a Canada-EU trade pact.

"It would be in the midterm a big mistake for the United States and something that would be a hindrance for their economy."

In the meantime, business groups in Canada are mounting their own pressure campaign to try to turn the protectionist boat around.

Jayson Myers, president of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters Association, says his members have been getting their concerns out to American industry groups as well as U.S. suppliers. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce has taken a similar tack.

"I don't think the embassy and the consulates can do it all by themselves," Myers said.

"What's going to convince U.S. legislators is to have a company in their own district saying this is a problem for us. It's difficult for us to get that message across, so we have to work with U.S. companies to make sure they are telling their local legislators."

 

[a_majoor]

America and the world want what he can't deliver, and what he is delivering is so unpalatable that this prediction may come true:

http://www.dcexaminer.com/opinion/columns/MarkTapscott/Obama-is-headed-for-a-one-term-presidency-39461127.html

Obama is headed for a one-term presidency

By Mark Tapscott
Editorial Page Editor | 2/12/09 1:45 PM

Well, that didn’t take long.

Less than a month ago, Barack Obama was sworn-in as chief executive amid historic promises of “change we can believe in.” But there won’t be a second Obama term if he doesn’t admit that, no matter how adroitly he wraps himself in Reaganesque rhetoric, Leviathan is no better suited for 2009 than it was in 1933 for FDR.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, the New Deal’s Big Government spending failed to end the Great Depression. That is clear to anybody who reads Paul Johnson’s masterful chapter on the New Deal in “Modern Times.”

Or Amity Schlaes’ superb “The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression.” Or the utterly convincing data-driven study by UCLA professors Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian that concluded the New Deal lengthened the Great Depression by at least seven years.

FDR at least had nearly a decade for his Sisyphean labors. Obama won’t get a chance to end the current recession because, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the recovery will have long since started before most of the gargantuan $1 trillion stimulus bill’s spending crosses the Potomac.

But that’s not the main reason Obama’s prospects for gaining a second term in 2012 are already fading faster than a Maine RINO can forget what being a Republican means. Obama is making himself the symbol of what’s wrong with Washington rather than being the agent of change in Washington.

Democratic pols like Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York think voters don’t care about pork in the stimulus bill,  but lots of now-former Republican members of Congress know better.

Earmarks are indeed, in Sen. Tom Coburn’s evocative term, “the gateway drug to federal spending addiction” and the basic ingredient of the culture of corruption in Washington that has driven the approval rating of Congress into the single digits.

Growing public awareness of the deeply porkified content of the stimulus package is the chief driver behind the plunge in a mere two weeks from modestly strong initial approval to only a third of those surveyed continuing to support passage.

That awareness is also why Rasmussen Reports this week found a virtual dead heat between the two parties in the generic congressional voting survey, with 40 percent saying they plan to vote Democrat in their congressional balloting and 39 percent going Republican.

“This marks the lowest level of support for the Democrats in tracking history and is the closest the two parties have been on the generic ballot,” Rasmussen said of a survey that points to the party most likely to gain a majority in the next election. This may be the best single piece of electoral news the GOP has received in three years.

By ceding to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi the crafting of the economic stimulus package - the biggest single spending bill in U.S. history - and then vigorously defending them in the most partisan manner, Obama has recast himself from icon into just another Washington politico.

It is doubtful Obama will ever say anything more damaging to his credibility than his claim “there are no earmarks” in the stimulus bill. That one no doubt caused howls of disbelieving laughter from one end of Congress to the other. Even a few of Obama’s devotees in the Mainstream Media winced at those words.

Only the most deeply naïve don’t know that both the Senate’s $838 billion bill and the House’s $827 billion measure are swollen with pork barrel spending. That’s before the conference report is completed. Even as this column is being written, the Reid and Peolosi brigades are no doubt carpet-bombing the conference report with air-dropped earmarks.

We know this because staffers for Reid, Pelosi and the Democratic conferees met during the night Tuesday to draft the final report, so it can be voted on by the Senate and House Thursday, then sent to Obama for his signature late Thursday or Friday.

We’ll know before fall arrives that the stimulus package has failed and we will be hearing demands for another one. Then, while Obama’s place as America’s first black president is assured, the odds are great that the next line in his legacy will read “the last New Deal liberal in the White House.”

Mark Tapscott is editorial page editor of The Washington Examiner and proprietor of Tapscott’s Copy Desk blog on dcexaminer.com.

UPDATE: There is a big IF up there, folks

Evidently, my saying Obama is headed for a one-term presidency IF he doesn't change course isn't sufficiently clear for some people. I'm not saying Obama has now been doomed by his actions since Jan. 20, 2009 to defeat in November 2012 regardless of what he does between now and then. What I am very definitely saying is that he is presently embarked on a losing strategy that must be changed if he hopes to win a second term.

 

[a_majoor]

And the world wants earmarks; lots of earmarks....

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000003061639&referrer=js

Funny how items show up in spending bills without any notice — like an earmark for a president who promised not to seek any.

President Obama, who took a no-earmark pledge on the campaign trail, is listed as one of dozens of cosponsors of a $7.7 million set-aside in the fiscal 2009 omnibus spending bill (HR 1105) passed by the House on Wednesday.

The bill is an accumulation of leftovers from 2008 — spending measures that weren’t enacted before the 110th Congress expired. Lawmakers who wanted money for local projects in those bills were required to submit their requests many months ago, while Obama was still a senator. It’s moving through Congress now because a temporary extension of funds to run the government will run out after March 6.

Obama’s name jumps out on a list of many earmark cosponsors because he and his staff have been so emphatic about his no-earmark stance.

 

[CougarKing]

America and the world want what he can't deliver, and what he is delivering is so unpalatable that this prediction may come true:

The jury is still out on that.

And in the meantime, he just increased military spending. A step to the police state you fear so much? I don't think so.

U.S. DoD To Get $537B Annually For 10 Years

By vago muradian
Published: 25 Feb 19:28 EST (00:28 GMT) 

President Barack Obama's administration is expected to announce tomorrow the Pentagon's 10-year topline spending plan will start with a request for a $537 billion base budget in 2010 and assume flat budgets adjusted only for inflation over the subsequent nine years, a source said.

The White House declined comment.

The administration also is expected to seek $75.5 billion in supplemental funding to cover war operations for the rest of 2009, the source said. In 2010, the administration is likely to seek $130 billion in supplemental funding to pay for Afghanistan and Iraq operations. The administration will, however, provide separate estimates for war-specific costs in each of the coming years.

The announcement of topline budgets for government departments is intended to allow the Congress to start writing the 2010 budget resolution. details such as spending on weapons, research and development, and other categories will be released in April when the administration submits its 2010 budget request to Congress.

Obama during his Feb. 24 address to a joint session of Congress pledged to be more transparent about war costs.

"That is why this budget looks ahead 10 years and accounts for spending that was left out under the old rules - and for the first time, that includes the full cost of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan," Obama said. "For seven years, we have been a nation at war. No longer will we hide its price."

Obama has been critical of the Bush administration practice of using catch-all supplemental funding to pay not only for sustained war costs, but also acquisition and other programs normally part of the base Pentagon budget.

The Pentagon's 2009 base budget is $515 billion, with $68.5 billion in supplemental funding allocated so far for Iraq and Afghanistan operations.

If approved by Congress, the $537 billion base budget would increase the Pentagon's topline spending by 3 percent.

 

[a_majoor]

The problem with this administration and this congress is they are very adept at speaking out of all sides of their mouths. Will the Dems institute a Police State? The administration and the congress certainly show the desire for a vastly expanded role of the State in the social and economic life, and actions, of course speak volumes.

Large sectors of the Financial industry have been effectively nationalized, perhaps enough to make the private banks (especially the ones that were run in a prudent manner) uncompetative. Other sectors of the economy will go the same way as political rent seekers try to muscle out their competition, with lots of help from the "Stimulus" package. The White House is attempting to take over the US Census in direct defiance of the Constitution, and the only motive is to politicise the Census in order to send appropriations to favored (through "statistical sampling" and possibly ACORN like head counts) districts. Various Democrat congressmembers and Senators are now openly talking about re introducing the "Fairness" doctrine for radio and the Internet (coincidentally the only places where the Progressive message is seriously challenged), crippling free speech and the free passage of ideas.

Ideas that have been floated like nationalizing private IRA's and the civilian national security force are alarming in of themselves, but even more so since they fit so well into the already unfolding actions of the administration and the congress.

If the United States ever devolves into a police state, it will be to enforce the increase of State power against the efforts of citizens who object. (You might want to look at history. Even the United States had an episode of a proto "Brown Shirt" organization during WWI with the American Protective League)

If there is hope, it lies with the fact that only a slim majority of the population elected President Obama, and the rapidly growing "Tea Party" movement which could provide focus and tip enough people back to make the opposition the majority.

 

[tomahawk6]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/26/AR2009022602908.html

Not a great speech, but extremely consequential. If Barack Obama succeeds, his joint address to Congress will be seen as historic -- indeed as the foundational document of Obamaism. As it stands, it constitutes the boldest social democratic manifesto ever issued by a U.S. president.

The first part of the speech, justifying his economic stabilization efforts, was mere housekeeping. The economic crisis is to Obama a technocratic puzzle that needs to be solved because otherwise he loses all popular support.

Unlike most presidents, however, he doesn't covet popular support for its own sake. Some men become president to be someone, others to do something. This is what separates, say, a Bill Clinton from a Ronald Reagan. Obama, who once noted that Reagan altered the trajectory of America as Clinton had not, sees himself a Reagan.

Reagan came to office to do something: shrink government, lower taxes, rebuild American defenses. Obama made clear Tuesday night that he intends to be equally transformative. His three goals: universal health care, universal education, and a new green energy economy highly funded and regulated by government.

1) Obama wants to be to universal health care what Lyndon Johnson was to Medicare. Obama has publicly abandoned his once-stated preference for a single-payer system as in Canada and Britain. But that is for practical reasons. In America, you can't get there from here directly.

Instead, Obama will create the middle step that will lead ultimately and inevitably to single-payer. The way to do it is to establish a reformed system that retains a private health-insurance sector but offers a new government-run plan (based on benefits open to members of Congress) so relatively attractive that people voluntarily move out of the private sector, thereby starving it. The ultimate result is a system of fully socialized medicine. This will probably not happen until long after Obama leaves office. But he will be rightly recognized as its father.

(2) Beyond cradle-to-grave health care, Obama wants cradle-to-cubicle education. He wants far more government grants, tax credits and other financial guarantees for college education -- another way station to another universal federal entitlement. He lauded the country for establishing free high school education during the Industrial Revolution; he wants to put us on the road to doing the same for college during the Information Age.

(3) Obama wants to be to green energy what John Kennedy was to the moon shot, its visionary and creator. It starts with the establishment of a government-guided, government-funded green energy sector into which the administration will pour billions of dollars from the stimulus package and billions more from budgets to come.

But just picking winners and losers is hardly sufficient for a president who sees himself as world-historical. Hence the carbon cap-and-trade system he proposed Tuesday night that will massively restructure American industry and create a highly regulated energy sector.

These revolutions in health care, education and energy are not just abstract hopes. They have already taken life in Obama's $787 billion stimulus package, a huge expansion of social spending constituting a down payment on Obama's plan for remaking the American social contract.

Obama sees the current economic crisis as an opportunity. He has said so openly. And now we know what opportunity he wants to seize. Just as the Depression created the political and psychological conditions for Franklin Roosevelt's transformation of America from laissez-faireism to the beginnings of the welfare state, the current crisis gives Obama the political space to move the still (relatively) modest American welfare state toward European-style social democracy.

In the European Union, government spending has declined slightly, from 48 percent to 47 percent of GDP during the past 10 years. In the United States, it has shot up from 34 percent to 40 percent. Part of this explosive growth in U.S. government spending reflects the emergency private-sector interventions of a Republican administration. But the clear intent was to make the massive intrusion into the private sector temporary and to retreat as quickly as possible. Obama has radically different ambitions.

The spread between Europe and America in government-controlled GDP has already shrunk from 14 percent to 7 percent. Two terms of Obamaism and the difference will be zero.

Conservatives take a dim view of the regulation-bound, economically sclerotic, socially stagnant, nanny state that is the European Union. Nonetheless, Obama is ascendant and has the personal mandate to take the country where he wishes. He has laid out boldly the Brussels-bound path he wants to take.

Let the debate begin.

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

 

[a_majoor]

The economy is coming for the Congress and Administration:

 

[a_majoor]

Future historians will have a field day:

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/03/wikipedia-scrubs-dear-leaders-page-of.html

Wikipedia Scrubs Dear Leader's Page Clean of Critical Entries

Wikipedia scrubs Obama's entry clean of any critical information that may taint your view of Dear Leader.

Wikipedia airbrushes any controversial information about Dear Leader from its webpage including his 20 year relationship with mentor Jeremiah Wright and his long relationship with terrorist Bill Ayers.

World Net Daily reported, via Drudge:

    Wikipedia, the online "free encyclopedia" mega-site written and edited entirely by its users, has been deleting within minutes any mention of eligibility issues surrounding Barack Obama's presidency, with administrators kicking off anyone who writes about the subject, WND has learned.

    A perusal through Obama's current Wikipedia entry finds a heavily guarded, mostly glowing biography about the U.S. president. Some of Obama's most controversial past affiliations, including with Rev. Jeremiah Wright and former Weathermen terrorist Bill Ayers, are not once mentioned, even though those associations received much news media attention and served as dominant themes during the presidential elections last year.

    Also completely lacking is any mention of the well-publicized concerns surrounding Obama's eligibility to serve as commander-in-chief.

    Indeed, multiple times, Wikipedia users who wrote about the eligibility issues had their entries deleted almost immediately and were banned from re-posting any material on the website for three days.

 

[a_majoor]

Dissing foreign leaders is one thing, but this....

http://unambig.wordpress.com/2009/03/17/to-care-for-him-who-shall-have-borne-the-battle/

“To Care For Him Who Shall Have Borne The Battle”
March 17, 2009 — Raphael Alexander

usarmy

There’s a good reason why even the most ardent anti-war activists will seldom publicly heap scorn and ridicule on soldiers, nor even to suggest their funding be cut back or reduced in a way that would compromise their safety. It is because the vast majority of people respect and honour soldiers who choose to put their lives on the line for the defence of their country, a thing inconceivable to many of us. One does not have to be willing to volunteer one’s own life to support putting our soldiers in harms way, but one most certainly should be willing to care for those who return from a battle fought on our behalf, and not begrudge a penny that goes toward that medical aid. To criticize a conflict based upon the perceived necessity or imperative to the country is a valid pursuit of conscience, but I think you will find that few people use the soldiers themselves as the subject for antagonism. This is why the recent protests against the returning British soldiers in Luton was so abhorrent, or why the church of Fred Phelps is universally reviled, even by those who oppose the Iraq war with every fibre of their being.

It is an understatement, then, to say that Barack Obama walks on a very tenuous tightrope by fighting against the American Legion in trying to force private insurance companies to pay for the treatment of military veterans who have suffered service-connected disabilities and injuries. Commander David K. Rehbein, leader of the largest veterans organization in America, expressed dismay after a fruitless meeting with President Obama yesterday in which the government issued intent to recoup losses in medical costs to servicemen and women injured in combat. A “wealth transfer” in the most legitimate sense of the term to date, the President hopes to save $540 million by this method, refusing to listen to arguments of a moral nature. Commander Rehbein elaborates:

    “This reimbursement plan would be inconsistent with the mandate ‘ to care for him who shall have borne the battle’ given that the United States government sent members of the armed forces into harm’s way, and not private insurance companies. I say again that The American Legion does not and will not support any plan that seeks to bill a veteran for treatment of a service connected disability at the very agency that was created to treat the unique need of America’s veterans!”

    [...]

    “There is simply no logical explanation for billing a veteran’s personal insurance for care that the VA has a responsibility to provide. While we understand the fiscal difficulties this country faces right now, placing the burden of those fiscal problems on the men and women who have already sacrificed a great deal for this country is unconscionable.”

The American Legion believes that the reimbursement plan of delegating out health insurance to private companies is contrary to the mandate of Veterans Affairs to treat injuries and disabilities incurred by the directive of the United States government itself. I couldn’t agree more. “Insurance” is a kind of a misnomer; they should be called “Reimbursement” Companies, since often it takes upfront payment of medical services before one can apply for and receive a refund. Insurance, as a definition, means to “insure” against liability and expenses that one might be otherwise unable to afford. By forcing disabled veterans to pay for services that the government should be paying up front, it would create additional hardship on the servicemen and women who are already suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder conditions that have led to U.S. Army suicide rates exceeding the civilian population for the first time since 1980 when records started being kept.

Not only could private health insurance create problems with coverage limits and family plans, some employers could avoid hiring veterans because of the problems associated with obtaining company health care benefits. The greatest worry is that veterans could wind up destitute or unable to pay medical bills, and all because the government is seeking ways to reduce costs at a time when this administration has just offered up a $787 billion stimulus bill. For the good of military families and the health of the U.S. Army, I hope President Obama reconsiders.

[This article was brought to my attention by a reader. If there's an article you think deserves my attention, you can send me a "tip" by emailing me: rphl_lxndr at yahoo.ca]

We hear that there are tumults and riots in Rome, and that voices are raised concerning the army and the quality of our soldiers. Make haste to reassure us that you love and support us as we love and support you, for if we find that we have left our bones to bleach in these sands in vain, then beware the fury of the legions.

 

[CougarKing]

Words of support from one former POTUS to the current one:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29743567/?gt1=43001

Bush says Obama 'deserves my silence'
He says he won't criticize new president and he plans to write a book

During his eighth week in office, President Barack Obama ventured into international matters, dealt with economic issues, saluted Abraham Lincoln and announced education reform efforts.
more photos

updated 1 hour, 39 minutes ago
CALGARY, Alberta - Former President George W. Bush said on Tuesday that he won't criticize Barack Obama because the new U.S. president "deserves my silence," and said he plans to write a book about the 12 toughest decisions he made in office.

Bush declined to critique the Obama administration in his first speech since leaving office in January. Former Vice President Dick Cheney has said that Obama's decisions threatened America's safety.

"I'm not going to spend my time criticizing him. There are plenty of critics in the arena," Bush said. "He deserves my silence."

Bush said he wants Obama to succeed and said it's important that he has that support. Talk-show host Rush Limbaugh has said he hoped Obama would fail.

"I love my country a lot more than I love politics," Bush said. "I think it is essential that he be helped in office."

The invitation-only event titled a "Conversation with George W. Bush" attracted close to 2,000 guests who paid $3,100 per table. Bush received two standing ovations from the predominantly business crowd. About 200 protested outside the event.

Not so unpopular in Alberta
Bush is unpopular in Canada but less so in oil-rich Alberta, the country's most conservative province and one sometimes called the Texas of the north.

"This is my maiden voyage. My first speech since I was the president of the United States and I couldn't think of a better place to give it than Calgary, Canada," Bush said.

The event's organizers declined to say how much Bush was paid to speak at the gathering.

Bush said that he doesn't know what he will do in the long term but that he will write a book that will ask people to consider what they would do if they had to protect the United States as president.

He said it will be fun to write and that "it's going to be (about) the 12 toughest decisions I had to make."

"I'm going to put people in my place, so when the history of this administration is written at least there's an authoritarian voice saying exactly what happened," Bush said.

"I want people to understand what it was like to sit in the Oval Office and have them come in and say we have captured Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, the alleged killer of a guy named Danny Pearl because he was simply Jewish, and we think we have information on further attacks on the United States," Bush said.

Iraq better without Saddam Hussein
Bush didn't specify what the 12 hardest decisions were but said Iraq is better off without Saddam Hussein in power.

Bush was also full of jokes during his appearance. He joked that he would do more speeches to pay for his new house in Dallas.
"I actually paid for a house last fall. I think I'm the only American to have bought a house in the fall of 2008," he quipped.

He also said his mother is doing well. Barbara Bush was released from a Houston hospital Friday, nine days after undergoing heart surgery. "Clearly he can't live without her," Bush said of his father and former President George H.W. Bush.

Bush seemed to enjoy himself even though the event started a half later than expected because of tight security. "I'll sit here all day," Bush said during a question-and-answer session. "I'm flattered people even want to hear me in the first place."

 

[CougarKing]

So the POTUS gets help from an unexpected source....Gov. Schwarzenegger.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090319/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama

Schwarzenegger to help Obama answer GOP critics
By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press Writer Charles Babington, Associated Press Writer – Thu Mar 19, 7:47 am ET
AP
LOS ANGELES – President Barack Obama is playing a bit of divide and conquer this week, pitting his Republican critics in Washington against GOP governors and mayors eager for the federal money that his hard-fought stimulus plan will bring. Next on the list of Republican notables to embrace the president is California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is to join Obama at a town hall meeting Thursday in Los Angeles.

Congress recently enacted Obama's $787 billion stimulus bill without a single House Republican's vote, and with only three GOP senators' votes.

Republican governors have had mixed reactions to the massive measure. Some hardline conservatives, such as Mark Sanford of South Carolina, have rejected portions of the economic bounty.

Other GOP governors, including Charlie Crist of Florida, have welcomed Obama and the stimulus money. Schwarzenegger is casting his lot with that group.

As Obama began his two-day Southern California visit Wednesday in Costa Mesa, the White House released a list of projects to be funded with stimulus money. They include adding an eastbound lane to the Riverside Freeway/SR91 in Orange County. Obama's mention of the project drew cheers from a crowd of 1,300 that greeted him in Costa Mesa.

When a recently laid-off school teacher told Obama of her plight, he said the stimulus will help thousands of teachers nationwide keep their jobs.

Throughout the trip, Obama is playing the role of the embattled populist crusader, helping average Americans fight entrenched interests on Capitol Hill and Wall Street.

He said Southern California's weather and conversations are much nicer than in Washington. The conversation Wednesday was more one-sided, to be sure, as the Costa Mesa crowd cheered, 2,500 miles from the Capitol's shadow.

He defended his ambitious plan to overhaul health care, energy, education, taxes and spending policies in the coming months, against unidentified forces aligned against him.

"I know some folks in Washington and on Wall Street are saying we should focus on only one problem at a time: 'our problem,'" Obama said. "But that's just not the way it works."

"You don't get to choose between paying your mortgage bills or your medical bills," he told those in a hot auditorium. The government also must tackle multiple challenges at the same time, he said.

Obama spoke for 21 minutes, then took eight questions. The first: Will he seek re-election in 2012?

"If I could get done what I think needs to get done in four years, even if it meant that I was only president for four years, I would rather be a good president — to take on the tough issues for four years — than a mediocre president for eight years," Obama said.

There were other whiffs of self-sacrifice. Referring to the uproar over bonuses paid to executives of the largely nationalized AIG insurance company, Obama said: "I know Washington's all in a tizzy, and everybody's pointing fingers at each other and saying, 'It's their fault, the Democrats' fault, the Republicans' fault.' Listen, I'll take responsibility. I'm the president."

In the same breath, he said, "We didn't draft these contracts." But he added, "It is appropriate when you're in charge to make sure that stuff doesn't happen like this."

Obama tried to head off questions about AIG by saying he understood taxpayers' anger. And he tried to broaden the issue, which has vexed his young administration.

"These bonuses, outrageous as they are, are a symptom of a much larger problem," he said. It's "a culture where people made enormous sums of money taking irresponsible risks that have now put the entire economy at risk."

In fact, no one asked Obama about AIG. The questions focused on jobs, schools, union rights and other issues that are easier for him to handle.

One little curve ball came, however, on a topic Obama rarely mentions on his own: immigration. Before a crowd that seemed divided on the emotional, politically dangerous issue, Obama said he still supports "comprehensive immigration reform."

The nation must find a way, he said, to strengthen its borders while also giving about 12 million illegal immigrants a path to possible citizenship.

"People who have been here for a long time and put down roots," he said, should have "a mechanism over time to get out of the shadows" and achieve legal status, including citizenship.

They would have to learn English, pay a significant fine and "go to the back of the line" of those applying for legal entry, he said.

Former President George W. Bush backed a similar immigration program. But it died in Congress amid heavy criticisms, especially from those saying too many illegal immigrants have been allowed to enter the country.

Before returning to Washington late Thursday, Obama will tape an appearance on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno."

 

 

[a_majoor]

Leadership, or just guest appearances? Rex Murphy wants to know:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090320.wcomurphy21/BNStory/specialComment/home

Faux outrage in a time of crisis
   
REX MURPHY

March 21, 2009 at 12:00 AM EDT

So Jon Stewart has taken down Jim Cramer. Everyone knows Mr. Stewart, the late-night host of The Daily Show, but for those who do not troll the outer regions of the cable badlands, Mr. Cramer plays host to CNBC's Mad Money - a "stock picking" half hour that combines the subtlety of Jackass with the depth of Knight Rider.

Going against his Wall Street genes, Mr. Cramer voted for Barack Obama, but he got picked out by Robert Gibbs, Mr. Obama's press secretary, for a public blistering. Nonetheless, I expect it was Mr. Gibbs's tagging him as an "adversary," something he has been doing with some regularity from the White House podium - impresario Rush Limbaugh and CNBC market commentator Rick Santelli (a mere gnat to Mr. Limbaugh's condor presence) are recent examples - that called Mr. Cramer to Mr. Stewart's attention.

To the satisfaction of all right-minded people, Mr. Stewart, the smirking gladiator, demolished Mr. Cramer, the zany market man, in the so-called anchor war and was roundly celebrated on the blogs and in the wider media. "Ripped him a new one" was the term of art most frequently employed.

Some years ago, Mr. Stewart did a like number on a bow-tied pundit named Tucker Carlson - a calmer adversary than Mr. Cramer, it is true, but one with an equally low-tide profile. Mr. Stewart is getting very good at bringing down small game with cheap shot. Pretty soon, he'll work up from smirk to full grimace and take on, I dunno, that dour laptop ninja George Will.
Related Articles

Now, Mr. Cramer has as much responsibility for the crash of global markets as a dewdrop landing on a tsunami - so let's not mistake this "takedown" for a public service. But, hey, it's comedy, right. So a question arises. Amid the trillions of dollars currently gushing from Congress - in appropriations so large and so quickly passed that no one, not even those authorizing them, is reading the damn things - why take the fly swatter to the most insignificant bug in the room?

There's something of the same disproportion going on with the fury over these AIG bonuses. Now it is surely patented arrogance to be sucking huge bonuses out of a public bailout. But the congressional critters who are braying in outrage over this are monstrous Pharisees. They themselves had passed the bailout bill that allowed these very bonuses, and one of them, Senate banking committee chairman Chris Dodd, wrote in the very clause that protected them. And they themselves have stuck in 8,500 pet pork projects into the stimulus bill - that's 8,500 bonuses, if you like - at a cost of nearly $8-billion.

Is it not convenient, then, to have comedians doing an on-air version of riding irrelevant cable TV hucksters out of town on a rail, at the same time as Congress authorizes and condemns the AIG bonuses - and fattens its own members' political fortunes with nearly $8-billion of pork spending.

And where is Barack Obama in all this. Well, Mr. Obama is acting curiously. He doesn't so much preside over the crisis as act like America's chosen master of ceremonies, who appears on stage to introduce its component segments. Good patter, well-chosen appearances. There's no centre to his performance. We hear as much about the First Dog (chosen, but yet to be installed) as Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner (installed, but yet to act).

Mr. Obama drops in to everyday events more than he actually manages them. He's very cool, as always, but he lacks affect. He doesn't seem to connect with the great swirl of events around him. He shows up. He doesn't act. He likes to tour, and visit happy places. He was, for example, on Jay Leno this week. If things get really bad, I expect he'd take the centre seat of that dread couch on The View. Chat up Joy and Whoopi. The President of the United States as permanent celebrity guest. And if things go completely berserk, there'll be a Barbara Walters special, the President emoting to Babs, sandwiched between teary featurettes on OctoMom and Lindsay Lohan.

The American presidency as a four-year celebrity guest spot. "Say hello to the band, Mr. President." There's something to this. Between the concocted rage of Congress over the bonuses and the faux outrage of Jon Stewart - the Obama administration's house comic - the greatest financial crisis in generations seems to summon very little but gesture and one-liners. From those, that is, who are supposed to be managing it. Those who have lost jobs and more know it's not a TV show, not an irony fest for smartass comedians or an excuse to drop by, ever so winsomely, to the late-night celebrity massage parlours.

Is Barack Obama leading the United States at this time? Or is he just a really cool guy with all the power in the world and not a whole lot of clues about how to use it?

 

[tomahawk6]

The latest Rasmussen poll shows Obama with a 32% approval rating and this is only the first 100 days.

 

[CougarKing]

Meanwhile, down under...

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/090322/world/australia_us_diplomacy_politics

Australian PM says he'll talk straight with Obama
41 minutes ago


MELBOURNE (AFP) - Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Sunday he wanted a straight-talking relationship with US President Barack Obama and would stand up to the American leader if necessary.


Rudd will meet Obama for the first time on Tuesday in Washington, with Afghanistan and the global recession likely to dominate the agenda.


Asked if he would have the guts to stand up to the head of Australia's major ally if he believed it necessary, Rudd replied: "Absolutely.


"None of us have perfect wisdom," he told Channel Nine television. "I expect some of my friends around the world would pick up the phone and say 'I think you got this one wrong mate'.


"So if that happens -- and I see no evidence of it yet -- my responsibility as prime minister of Australia is to say 'we're with you on this, we're with you on that but actually, we part company on this'."


Rudd's predecessor, John Howard, struck up a strong personal friendship with the previous US president, George W. Bush, who hailed the Australian leader as a "man of steel" over his support for the US-led war in Iraq.


But Howard was sometimes criticised for following Washington's foreign policy lead too closely, earning himself the nickname as Bush's "deputy sheriff" in the Asia Pacific.


Rudd said he had developed a "good rapport" with Obama in their telephone conversations.


But rather than dwelling on the personal relationship, he said Australia wanted to work with the United States on the big issues -- including security in Afghanistan, global economic challenges, climate change and China's future role in the Asia Pacific region.


"I'm not saying we're going to agree on everything, our job is to look at everything in terms of Australia's national interest," he said.


"But I think I'm going to have a good relationship with President Obama."


Rudd offered no guarantees if, as has been widely tipped, Obama asks during the talks for Australia to lift its troop deployment in Afghanistan from its current level of about 1,000 soldiers.


"They may put to me a request for further Australian commitment and I will, together with my colleagues, consider all those things on their merits. It doesn't mean you say yes, or say no," he said.


The Australian leader praised Obama's response to the global economic crisis.


"America's back in the game of providing global economic leadership," he said. "That's so important, given what we all face and the implications back home in Australia for jobs and the economy."

 

[CougarKing]

So will Putin *COUGH* Medvedev be ready when Obama comes to visit?  ;D

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090401/ap_on_re_eu/eu_obama_china

Obama accepts invitations to visit China, Russia
1 hr 20 mins ago

LONDON – President Barack Obama has accepted an invitation to visit China later this year. The White House said Wednesday that Obama has accepted an invitation from President Hu Jintao. Obama and Hu met in London ahead of the G-20 economic summit.

The White House also announced that Obama was accepting an invitation to visit Moscow this summer.

The White House says Obama and Hu agreed to "intensify coordination and cooperation on global economic and financial issues." As economic leaders, the United States and China say they want to work together to address the economic crisis.

The two countries also agreed to form a U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue. The White House says Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner would represent the United States during those talks.

 

[CougarKing]

Read the last line of this article to see another example that show that Obama is also "reaching across the aisle" to Conservatives there, even in another country.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090401/ap_on_re_eu/eu_obama

Obama arrives at Buckingham Palace to meet queen
         
2 hrs 23 mins ago
LONDON – President Barack Obama has arrived at Buckingham Palace for a private meeting with Queen Elizabeth II. Several thousand well-wishers crowded the traffic circle in front of the gated palace on Wednesday to cheer and wave as the limousine carrying Obama and first lady Michelle Obama rolled past.

On the eve of a global economic summit, Obama promised world leaders he would listen, not lecture, as they seek a common fix to the financial crisis. "We can only meet this challenge together," he said Wednesday as the U.S. and Russia spoke on the summit sidelines about nuclear warhead reduction.

The flurry of diplomacy came as Obama stepped on the world stage for the first time as president, aiming to shore up both America's economy and its reputation across the globe. He met with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Chinese President Hu Jintao — and promptly accepted invitations to visit Russia in July and China sometime in the second half of the year.

Thousands of protesters converged on central London to rally against the economic summit.

In the most dominant development, Obama and Medvedev announced talks to limit the number of nuclear warheads, the first major negotiations in years over what Obama called the "gravest threat to humanity."

Meanwhile, speaking directly to anxious families back home, Obama sought to restore consumer confidence and encourage people to think about spending now to help their future.

(...)

Brown said he was confident Sarkozy would still be at the table when the dinner was complete.

In London, Obama is also meeting with Brown's main rival — David Cameron, the leader of Britain's opposition Conservative Party.

 

[Kirkhill]

CougarDaddy:

Nobody is denying that Obama is willing to gab with all-comers.

Two questions.

Does he know what he is talking about?

Does he givadam what the other side thinks?

My sense is that the answer to both questions is: NO.

 

[OldSolduer]

I was watching the news and it seems the rest of the world (Turks and Czechs) aren't as enamored with the new President as we are. In fact, there were demonstrations in Turkey telling President Obama to go home.

 

[wannabe SF member]

In the most dominant development, Obama and Medvedev announced talks to limit the number of nuclear warheads

I hear a lot of talks about reduction of nuclear arsenals these days.
While it "seems" a good thing that there are less nukes laying around, does it really make a difference if a country has 10 000 warheads or 2000?
Still enough to kill everyone on earth.

 

[a_majoor]

More "Hope'n'Change":

http://torydrroy.blogspot.com/2009/04/krauthammer-on-obamessuahs.html

Krauthammer on obamessiah's...

big trip. Dr Krauthammer points out it was not very successful. He also points out that obamessiah, like his wife doesn't seem to like America.

Our president came bearing a basketful of mea culpas. With varying degrees of directness or obliqueness, Obama indicted his own people for arrogance, for dismissiveness and derisiveness, for genocide, for torture, for Hiroshima, for Guantanamo and for insufficient respect for the Muslim world.

And what did he get for this obsessive denigration of his own country? He wanted more NATO combat troops in Afghanistan to match the surge of 17,000 Americans. He was rudely rebuffed.

He wanted more stimulus spending from Europe. He got nothing.

From Russia, he got no help on Iran. From China, he got the blocking of any action on North Korea.

And what did he get for Guantanamo? France, pop. 64 million, will take one prisoner. One! (Sadly, he'll have to leave his swim buddy behind.) The Austrians said they would take none. As Interior Minister Maria Fekter explained with impeccable Germanic logic, if they're not dangerous, why not just keep them in America...